Abstract

This article clarifies the means whereby the Catalan cotton industry attained independence from imported yarn in a critical stage of its development between the 1790s and the War of Independence. It does so by tracking the origins, and early diffusion, of the Arkwright technology in Catalonia in the form of a machine-making and spinning company formed between an Olotí stocking frame knitter, a Barcelona silver-smith and an Ávila trained machine-maker. The spinning and weaving initiatives of the Company inform on the circumstances conditioning the Catalan industry's incorporation of the spinning processes. Light is also thrown on the character of machine-making at this stage of Catalan industrialization in a pilot-enterprise anxious to restrict technical diffusion.